For more information, contact LaVonne Gerritzen, 620-792-9210.

April 8, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Story by: Linda Jerke

Barton Offers Non-Traditional Gender Career Exploration Event for Breaking Traditions

Breaking traditions in choosing a career has advantages. Women in careers traditionally chosen by men can receive as much as 25 percent more in salary than they would in a traditional career. Both women and men who choose non-traditional careers can base their jobs on abilities and interests, not gender stereotypes, and they have a greater chance of having a career they enjoy and greater flexibility in meeting family needs.

These are opportunities that students considering career options shouldn’t ignore, says LaVonne Gerritzen, executive director of Workforce Operations at Barton County Community College.

Barton will offer local and area high school students who will be freshmen, sophomores and juniors in fall 2008 an opportunity to explore non-traditional careers in June. The Breaking Traditions event will be offered from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, June 10-12, on Barton’s campus. Registration will be from 8 to 9 a.m. June 10. Male students will meet the first two days and female students will meet on all three days.
        
Males will have a chance to spend two days learning about careers in early childhood education and Medical Lab Technology, which traditionally employ more women than men, while the females will spend three days exploring three careers chosen from an offering of six non-traditional fields. Choices for the girls include agriculture, automotive, computer/networking, graphic design, EMT/paramedic and energy industry technician.  

In the sessions, the students will hear from males or females who are involved in non-traditional careers. The early childhood education session will focus on speech pathology led by a male speech pathologist, and the computer/networking session will have female IT professionals leading the session showing new technology on the horizon. Girls participating in the agriculture session will visit a veterinarian and a feed lot, in both cases talking to women in those fields.

Fees for the event will be $24 for males and $29 for females. The fees include the cost of a T-shirt, meals and field trips. Deadline for enrollment is May 25. For more information or to enroll, contact Lana Besthorn, 620-792-9266, or e-mail her at besthornl@bartonccc.edu.
Funding for the Breaking Traditions event comes from a Perkins legislation grant, Gerritzen said. “Perkins-supported programs across the country have certain benchmarks that have to be met for non-traditional careers,” she explained. “The institutions must have a certain number of males in predominantly female careers and a certain number of females in traditional male careers.”

This event will help promote and develop those benchmarks at Barton. “We’re trying to do something different, to think outside the box,” Gerritzen said. “In an automotive career, we think of becoming an auto mechanic, but there are other jobs that girls can get into such as working with parts or sales in the industry.”

Agriculture is the same way, she added. Being a farmer is only a part of the agriculture field, which also involves management, veterinary medicine and other options.